Violence and accidents are killing world's youth - study

Road accidents, pregnancy and childbirth complications, suicide, violence, the AIDS virus and tuberculosis are the biggest killers of young people across the world, according to a study published.

Researchers supported by the World Health Organisation said their study - the first to look at global death rates in those aged 10 to 24 - exposed as myth adolescents' belief that they are stronger and fitter than other age groups.

In reality, they said, 2.6 million young people are dying each year and most of those deaths are preventable. Some 97 per cent of the deaths were in low- and middle-income countries.

"Mortality rates in low-income and middle-income countries were almost four-fold higher than were those in high-income countries, a difference that was particularly pronounced for young women," the authors wrote on their study in The Lancet.

According to the WHO, there are more young people in the world today than ever before - 1.8 billion 10 to 14 year-olds account for 30 per cent of the world's population.

But George Patton of the Centre for Adolescent Health and Murdoch Children's Research Institute in Australia, who led the study, said the needs of this age group were often eclipsed by the very young, the elderly or the very sick when governments draw up health policies - an approach he said was increasingly risky as economic development continues.

"We are seeing a shift of mortality to adolescence with economic development," Mr Patton told a news conference in London. "No longer can politicians and those making policy say 'young people are healthy. We don't need to worry'. They do die."

Mr Patton's study found that two in five deaths worldwide in this age group were due to injuries and violence, with young men in low and middle-income regions such as eastern Europe and parts of South America at particularly high risk.

The top cause of adolescent male deaths was road traffic accidents at 14 per cent, followed by violence and suicide. Road accidents were also the biggest overall killer, accounting for 10 per cent of all deaths in the 10 to 24 age group, with suicide next at 6.3 per cent.

The researchers said this suggested the current focus on AIDS and other infectious diseases such as tuberculosis in this age group, while important, was "an insufficient response".

Maternal conditions including pregnancy and childbirth were a leading cause of adolescent female deaths, at 15 per cent. The study showed dramatic disparities in maternal death rates.

Rich nations like Britain have a one per cent maternal death rate while 26 per cent of female deaths in Africa are related to childbearing.

"It is shocking the levels of maternal mortality that still exist," Krishna Bose, of the WHO's child and adolescent health department, told the news conference. "There is no reason at all for women to die in the process of giving birth."

Of the total adolescent deaths, 97 per cent were in low- and middle-income countries and some 65 per cent were in sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia, despite these regions containing 42 per cent of 10-24 year olds.

High-income countries had only three per cent of the deaths, despite having 11 per cent of the population in this age range.

Biggest killers of young people worldwide

The top 10 causes of death in all 10-24-year-olds, males and females combined, globally were:

1) Road traffic accidents (10 per cent);
2) Suicide (6.3 per cent);
3) Violence (6 per cent);
4) Lower respiratory tract infections such as pneumonia (5.9 per cent);
5) Tuberculosis (5.5 per cent);
6) AIDS (5.5 per cent);
7) Drowning (4.1 per cent);
8) Fire-related deaths (2.6 per cent);
9) Meningitis (two per cent);
10) War (1.8 per cent)

• For males aged 10-24 worldwide, the top five causes of death were

1) Road traffic accidents (13.9 per cent);
2) Violence (9.2 per cent);
3) Suicide (6.4 per cent);
4) Drowning (5.3 per cent);
5) Tuberculosis (5.2 per cent)

• For females, aged 10-24 worldwide, the top five causes of death were

1) Lower respiratory tract infections (6.7 per cent);
2) Suicide (6.2 per cent);
3) AIDS (6.1 per cent);
4) Tuberculosis (5.8 per cent);
5) Road traffic accidents (5 per cent) **
** (Note: Maternal deaths from all causes represented 15 per cent of deaths, however they were divided into a number of different categories meaning that no individual maternal death category featured in the top five).

• In higher-income countries, traffic accidents caused 32 per cent of deaths in males aged 10-24 years. Violence accounted for 10 per cent of male mortality and suicide 15 per cent.

• Relative risks for death in Africa were higher than in any other region, and nearly seven times higher than in high-income countries (305 vs 45 deaths per 100,000).

• Males died at higher rates than females in all age groups and regions apart from Africa and southeast Asia, where the increased number of female deaths was largely from maternal mortality, with deaths from suicide, fire, AIDS, and tuberculosis also contributing.